


Remedy

by PseudonymousBotched



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Eleventh Doctor Era, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Non-binary character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt, it's hella dark okay?, non-binary doctor, the doctor uses they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudonymousBotched/pseuds/PseudonymousBotched
Summary: The Time War isn't over, not really, and tonight the Doctor has finally reached their breaking point. Luckily for the Doctor, when the nights are too silent and the wind tastes of ash, and they need her most... there is a Song.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be warned that this work contains graphic descriptions of PTSD flashbacks and a suicide attempt by poison (aspirin is toxic to Gallifreyans). If you are triggered by such things, please don't read any further.
> 
> Partially inspired by Adele's "Remedy", as if River is singing to the Doctor.

“Here we are then! Home! Or as close as I can get, with the harmonic stabilizers cracked.”

Truthfully, there was nothing wrong with the harmonic stabilizers – if such a part had ever existed upon or within the TARDIS. So they left a few digits off the end of the coordinates because their fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons. It was hard to hold all those numbers in the front of their mind, anyway. 

Turned out all right, though, they'd landed somewhere in Leadworth. Probably thanks to the TARDIS taking over navigating herself. And they were reasonably sure it was the correct time period. As the rotor came to a slow halt and the landing bell bonged, they crossed their arms – because it was something to do, they reasoned, not because they were trying to hide their shaky hands.

Footsteps – light, quick, behind them. Someone came up from behind them and wrapped them in a one armed hug – it could only be Amy, only she would do that to them. The Doctor tensed immediately, and fought their instincts to relax a fraction of a second later.

“Sure you won't come with us?” Amy asked. Her perfume really was quite loud, and they surreptitiously leaned away a little.

“Need to get those stabilizers repaired, or the old girl isn't going anywhere,” they said, and patted the console fondly. They hoped they weren't overplaying the inflection in their voice – they never could tell for sure when they were like this.

“How long should it take?” That was Rory. Rory the Roman!

“Ohh, a couple of days,” they said. That would give them enough time, right?

Rory went to the door and looked out. “You've landed us next to the hospital.”

“Good! You can get to work!”

“...It's the middle of the night.”

“Oh.”

Amy twined her arm into Rory's. “C'mon, we can have a nice walk home.”

They grinned, the fake smile that stretched their face in uncomfortable ways, and clasped their hands together. “Well, that's all settled then? A romantic walk, a couple days at home, I'll fix the stabilizers and then back off we go! Anywhere you like...” They were making themselves uneasy with their enthusiasm, surely Amy or Rory were seconds away from noticing that something was wrong...

But they were apparently a good actor still, because Amy flashed her usual smirk and finished their sentence, “Yeah, all of time and space!”

The Doctor kept their smile on until Amy and Rory were out the door, gone with a whisper of perfume and a good night hanging in the night air. They closed the door behind the two, the sound of the wooden door thumping shut sounding louder than it should in the sudden silence. 

They grasped the lock and turned it, the task of making the cold metal mechanism move taking a monumental effort. Then leaned against the door, the solidness of it pressing against their back. The smile was leaving their face, making it feel unresponsive and numb.

There was nothing wrong with the harmonic stabilizers, but there was something wrong with the TARDIS. The light was all wrong, bouncing off of every available surface, making colours too vivid. They noticed, as if from far away, everything they were aware of. An oddly focused, sparkling clarity in their vision. The lingering wafts of perfume and shoe leather and time energy. The weight of the coat, slightly scratchy about the neck. Left shoe tied slightly tighter than the right. There was a pounding pressure in their chest, and it took them a few seconds to realize it was their hearts.

And there it was. They turned their head to the left exactly three centimeters, and the tolling of cloister bells drowned out everything else. Vision dimmed amid a miasma of orange smoke and ash.


	2. School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor experiences one of the many flashbacks that haunt them.

Orange skies. Smoke rising from the city in the near distance. Three other Time Lords standing with them, with a fourth standing apart. The sleek metal of a rifle in their hands. The faces of their companions were oddly blurred. 

They didn't want to be here. Not here. Not now. No. No. No. NO.

The Doctor drew a gasping breath and for a moment they were back in the TARDIS, and they were stumbling to the console, and they were reaching out to it to grasp onto it with all the strength they had – 

An explosion rocked the city beneath the cracked dome. The other Time Lords looked away, began checking their weapons. The Doctor couldn't tear their eyes away.

The sky was full of Daleks. They swarmed over the city, filling the sky with their dark numbers. 

But they weren't interested in the rubble at the edge of the city. The front line wasn't here anymore, it was at the heart of the city.

The heart of the city... where innocent Gallifreyans were. From the depths of their memory, the Doctor remembered that there was a …

“Not the school,” pleaded the Doctor, and they snapped back into the TARDIS to discover that they had fallen to their knees and were crouching underneath the console. They were shaking. “Not the school, please not the school – ”

“There's a school in there!” the Doctor was shouting at their superior officer, a Time Lord who was considerably older and supposedly wiser than they were. “We can't just leave them. They're just children!” Susan's face flashed in their mind. 

With a nod, the superior officer gestured to two of the other Time Lords. The Doctor found their rifle being ripped from their hands, despite their best attempts to hang on to it.

“You are relieved of your weapon, Soldier,” the superior officer said.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor was curled up into a ball underneath the TARDIS console as if seeking the smallest, warmest spot possible. They were shaking and hyperventilating.

The Doctor was running, but there were hands on their upper arms, catching and hauling backward – they were caught! They were falling backward – they lost their balance – they were being dragged backward through the rubble, boots dislodging the small stones as they flailed and fought. They screamed at the top of their lungs, so loud that their throat hurt from the force of it. 

“NO! THERE'S CHILDREN IN THERE! WE CAN'T ABANDON THEM!”

Eventually they broke free and fought to their feet like a wild thing and took off running, empty handed because never mind that their gun had been taken away, and headed straight into the city.

“No,” moaned the Doctor in the TARDIS, covering their head with their arms, “you fool...”

The scene is the city full of rubble, burned down to a crisp shell of itself. Exhausted but running on pure adrenaline. Every nerve feels raw. Can't stop moving. Everything’s too bright, too sharp. Can't stop moving. Climbing over the rubble, boots slipping on smaller pieces that dislodge, scrambling for balance. The Daleks are coming, there's two right behind them. Can't stop moving. Go, go, go, GO. Don't stop.

Children. A dozen of them. Hiding in the rubble, petrified. It’s a blur. Can’t leave them behind. Nobody else around. Need to find them better shelter than out here. Too exposed.

Took too long. The Daleks are coming. RUN! Pick up a child, the closest one, a boy. He’s too scared to move on his own. See a building. Head for it. Dunno what’s inside but there’s no time to think. Metallic voices scratching the dry air. “EXTERMINATE.” Bursts of blue light scorching past. One skims past them, they can feel the heat of it on their back. 

Burns their coat. Duck but KEEP RUNNING. Shouting to the kids. Run! Don’t stop! Get inside!

They are only one man. They can’t shield them all.

In the building. Something large to hide behind. Head count. Only a few survived. Huddled around them in the shadows. The boy clings to their leg, voiceless.

The silence is pressing on every available inch. Yellow light. The scent of dust. Afraid to breathe, afraid of the sound of their own heartsbeats. Be still, be quiet. A moment of silence.

The Daleks are coming. Hear their mechanical gliding, the sound of their eyestalks turning this way and that. The hairs on the back of their neck tingle. They’re prey.

A dead soldier nearby. Can’t look at their face. They slide over as silently as they can. Reach out and carefully slide the gun towards them. It’s the only chance.

Spring up from behind whatever they were hiding behind. The gun smooth and cold in their hands. The Daleks - too close - large and golden. The gun kicks back when they fire. 

The electric smell of it fills the air. They're yelling without words.

They can’t let them get the children.

Not the children.

Not the children.

NOT THE CHILDREN.

Not today.


End file.
